Morning After
by Canadino
Summary: Sometimes it's only the morning after when you start regretting...ralphxsimon, implied ralphxjack. sequel to Get Out Alive


**Disclaimer: If Lord of the Flies were mine, I wouldn't need to write fanfics. If any of these songs were mine, I wouldn't be writing fanfics.**

Background music: Dance Floor Anthem (I Don't Want to Be in Love) – Good Charlotte

Note: I was not planning on writing a sequel but this came to me and I decided to write about the morning after the cult party as I call it. If you've read the story before this one, thank you for reading this one.

Morning After 

The scene was a truly dreary one, despite the sun's innocent shining above the desolate beach. At first glance, one might think it devoid of life, but if one watched for a second more, they would notice shifting in the bushes near the sand, hiding two identical beings collecting firewood, murmuring to each other about some happening the night before. Still watching, one would notice some small children playing in the sand, quietly, as if they knew the solemn atmosphere. Wait a moment longer and one would notice two lone figures sitting in a grass filled clearing, covered scantily with shade from the somewhat storm battered palm trees above. One was unashamedly fatter than the others, sitting and staring at the sea through a half broken pair of specs. The other had his head in his arms, hugging his knees closer to himself in mock comfort, as comfort was hard to come by on this particular island.

There was an unsteady silence before the skinnier boy broke the silence, his voice muffled as he spoke through his arms. "That was murder."

The other boy, obviously trying to regain a sense of sereneness, jumped to his feet, looking furious. "You stop it!" he shouted, louder than what he normally would have spoken in. "What good're you doing talking like that?"

The former looked up at his companion. Looking up at him, Ralph's face was decorated with a look that plainly asked for justification. The specs boy, Piggy, pushed on.

"It was dark. There was that-that bloody dance. There was lightning and thunder and rain. We was scared!" Piggy waved his hands as if they would help his argument. Ralph looked unconvinced.

"I wasn't scared," Ralph said, his voice slow and cracked. "I was-I don't know what I was."

"We _was_ scared," Piggy insisted, leaping at Ralph's hesitation. "Anything might have happened. It wasn't…what you said." Ralph stared at him for a moment more before giving up looking for solace. "Oh Piggy!" Instinctively gripping the conch, the only certain thing on the island, it seemed, Ralph attempted to console himself once more, rocking back and forth like a baby in a cradle, searching for a mother's comfort or a father's reassurance. Without adults on the island, of course, he got none.

"Don't you understand, Piggy?" Ralph tried to convey how he felt. "The things we did…"

"He may still be…"

"No." The finality in his voice told Piggy to drop the notion but the boy ignored it.

"P'raps he was only pretending…" Piggy trailed off as Ralph looked up and gave him a hard look. There was no point trying to argue something they both knew was wrong.

"You were outside," Ralph whispered. "Outside the circle. You never really came in. Didn't you see what we…what they did?" Frowning a bit with his tone, which betrayed hatred and yet a faint sound of exhilaration. Biting his lip, he tried to redeem himself. "Didn't you see, Piggy?"

"Not all that well. I only got one eye now." Piggy gestured to his broken specs. "You ought to know that, Ralph."

Ralph looked at him with unmistakable grief and returned to rock back and forth.

"Why are you so worried about it?" Piggy asked after a while. "What's done is done."

"I know, but I hate to break a promise…!" Ralph hesitated before trying to pretend he hadn't said anything.

"A promise?" Even through his cracked glasses, Piggy gave his friend a skeptical look. "What do you mean by that, Ralph?"

"It's nothing," Ralph said quickly, running his hand over the rough sandy patches of the conch, feigning ignorance. But Piggy persisted, like he always did.

"Tell me. It won't matter if it's anything bad. Nothing bad can possibly happen to you here. And besides, if it involves Simon, he's already…" He quickly stopped himself from saying 'the word'. Observing Ralph's body language, it seemed the wrong move. "He's not here, so he won't get mad at you or anything."

Ralph looked up at Piggy, who calmly sat down again. Looking as if he were going to deny he had said anything, Ralph opened his mouth before shaking his head and sighing. "Oh, what's the use? It's not like we're going to make it out anyway."

"Don't be negative," Piggy warned. They needed their leader to keep a firm head or else everything was going to go down in flames. Ralph shot him a condescending look before shaking his head again.

"It's just…I made Simon a promise when we all went to look for the beast. You remember that a few days ago?"

Piggy nodded. "What did you promise?" he asked as Ralph seemed reluctant to go further.

"I said…" Ralph wasn't sure why he was feeling so awkward. It wasn't like it was ever going to happen now anyway. And no one was going to hold it against him. "I promised I'd spend more time with him once we got off the island."

Piggy looked at him. "Blimey, what do you mean by that? You've probably spent a lot of him with him here."

"No, not like that…more like…" Ralph waved his hands feebly in the air as if they could speak for him.

"Time…alone?" Piggy guessed. Ralph nodded, feeling some sort of shame pool in his stomach.

"Is that it?" Ralph turned to Piggy, who was sitting with an unnatural calm, almost like a Buddha in tattered shorts. "What do you mean 'is that it?"

"I'm just saying…" Piggy shrugged lightly. "I don't know. You two seemed really close so…"

"Really close?" Ralph felt his face heat up. "What are you talking about?"

Piggy shrugged again. "I mean, we talk, but I got the feeling you and Simon…you know…'talked'. And he was always there to help you and stuff…I thought…I don't know…maybe there was something between you two."

"Well, there wasn't," Ralph shot, feeling the need to defend. As Piggy gave him a patient look, Ralph looked away and traced a squiggle in the sand. "At least…there won't be anyway."

Piggy continued watching him calmly, and after a while, Ralph felt comfortable enough to talk.

"I don't know, Piggy…there was something about him that interested me. When he fainted that day we all met. I just remember thinking…thinking 'Oh god, another person to worry about' but he seemed completely fine to take care of himself. I know Jack said he fainted all the time, but I couldn't help but worry."

Piggy nodded, although Ralph took no notice.

"He never said much so I thought maybe he didn't care. But he always made sure the littluns had enough to eat or that they didn't get hurt and I realized he did care. Maybe that he cared more about everyone else than himself. Then there was the fact that he always disappeared at weird times and once I tried to follow him but I lost him once we got deeper into the woods. I thought maybe he didn't want anyone to follow him so I forgot about it. He was…" Ralph seemed at loss for words.

"Batty," Piggy said confidently.

"Maybe," Ralph said slowly. "But in a good way."

"No one's batty in a good way," Piggy said.

"Well, he was, alright?" Ralph glared at Piggy, who averted his gaze onto the sand in front of him. "So…" Piggy said quietly, after a period of silence, "are you saying you liked him?"

"Of course I did." Ralph didn't say anything as Piggy gave him another look. "I don't know if I liked him _that_ way…but…it was confusing, Piggy. I don't know. I don't think I'll ever know."

"You will, later," Piggy said calmly, assuring. Ralph looked doubtful.

There was another pause. "Did you…know about Jack?"

Ralph looked away. Him. "What about him?"

"How he felt toward you?" Ralph frowned.

"He…" Piggy faltered. "I don't know what…but…one night," he said, rushing into this confession, "I woke up because of my asthma…"

"Sucks to your ass-mar."

"I woke up," Piggy repeated firmly so Ralph had to listen again. "And that was one time when it was only me, you, Simon, and Jack in one of those huts. The others were cramped in another one because Roger wanted to scare the littluns with the other biguns. And I hacked off for a bit…and when I was finally breathing right again, I think Jack must have thought I had fallen asleep or something. Because he got up and crawled toward you."

Ralph stared, entranced at this story.

"And he looked like he was going to touch you or something, but then my throat was all scratchy so I coughed…he turned to look at me and at that time, Simon rolled over so the two of you were getting all snuggly."

Piggy let this sink in as Ralph blushed at the mention of something he had no recollection of.

"And of course I had sat up to say something so Jack knew I was still awake. He blamed me for it…you know how he is…blamed me for making him pause and blamed me for making Simon turn how he did. I still don't know what he was planning of doing, but it prob'ly wasn't anything good since he hates me ever since." Piggy stopped in his story. "And that's that," he said, as if he had finished explaining a complex arithmetic problem.

"And that's that," Ralph echoed. For some reason, he felt even more so empty and desolate and it showed in his face.

"It was an accident," Piggy said, breaking the silence. "That's what it was. An accident." He paused and let Ralph accept it. "Coming in the dark…he hadn't no business crawling out like that out of the dark. He was batty. He asked for it." Piggy ignored the fact Ralph seemed close to a retort. "It was an _accident._"

"You didn't see what they did…" How could Piggy ever understand, being in the circumstances they were in? How could he know how much Ralph had wanted to comfort the boy, to help and defend him even though everyone else thought he was cracked and beyond help. How could Piggy know how it felt like to kill, just kill that very person?

"Look, Ralph. We got to forget this. We can't do no good thinking about it, see?"

"How…" Ralph let the conch slide out of his hands. "Say we get off this island…say we do…how are we gonna…how are we gonna explain this to his parents? How…" As much as Ralph wanted to ask Piggy, wise Piggy, how _he_ himself was going to get through this, a sliver of pride that was still intact prevented Ralph from saying more.

"I'm frightened. Of us. I want to go home. Oh God, I want to go home." Ralph closed his eyes and rested his head on his arms.

"It was an accident and that's that." Piggy remained steadfast in his mantra. He rested his hand on Ralph's bare shoulder and quickly shrank back as Ralph shuddered. "And look…Ralph…" Piggy made sure no one was around and leaned closer. "Don't let on we was in that dance. Not to Sameneric."

"But we were! All of us!" Part of him wanted to justify that they all had a part of his brutal slaying, but part of him felt the need, the urge to suppress it, that it had not happened, that Simon was just…oh, he didn't know…climbing the mountain and would be back in a few hours.

Piggy shook his head firmly. "Not us till last. They never noticed in the dark. Anyway you said I was only on the outside."

"So was I," Ralph muttered, suddenly feeling alienated. "I was on the outside too."

Piggy realized this change, this slight change of heart and noticed the opportunity. "That's right," he said, nodding quickly. "We was on the outside. We never done nothing, we never seen nothing." Taking Ralph's defeated silence as a good sign, he went on.

"We'll live on our own, the four of us."

"Four of us. We aren't enough to keep the fire burning."

"We'll try. See? I lit it." Piggy looked up as Sameneric suddenly came out of the forest, dragging a large log behind them. After putting it next to the fire, they started toward the pool. Finding something to do, something else to talk about, Ralph leapt up and called to them. The twins looked around, and acting as if they had not heard, continued walking toward the pool.

"They're going to bathe, Ralph," Piggy said, making the most obvious observation. Ralph nodded. "Better get it over." He started walked toward them. As he came up to them, they had no other choice but to stop and talk, however flustered they seemed to be.

"Hullo. Fancy meeting you, Ralph," said the twins in unison, as if they had just bumped into him on the street. "We just been in the forest," said Sam (or was it Eric?), "to get wood in the fire…"

"We got lost last night," the other twin added, sensing where this conversation was going.

"You got lost after the…" Piggy started, glancing at Ralph, who was looking at the ground. Instinctively, Piggy took off his specs and wiped them. The twins, sensing this change in conversation looked at each other. "After the feast," Sam said stiffly, turning toward Eric with a nervous look. "Yes, after the feast," Eric chimed in.

"We left early," Piggy said quickly, "because we were tired."

"So did we," the twins piped up. "Very early," said one, as the other explained why: "We were very tired." As they finished this, Sam touched a scratch on his forehead and realizing how this incriminated him, quickly let his hand fall back to his side. Eric fingered his split lip, glancing over at Sam for guidance.

"Yes. We were very tired," Sam started. "So we left early. Was it a good…" He paused, and everyone knew what was going to be said next, and they all dreaded it. "…dance?"

Ralph twitched with the memory of Simon giving him a glassy eyed look and found himself unable to say anything. Piggy shook his head, as if he couldn't believe Sam had asked such a stupid question. "We left early."

--

End note: this is probably the end of whatever I was going to write about the death of simon. The title actually has another meaning to it. The morning after pill is taken to prevent pregnancy, so in other words, it's taken after you've done something you regret and are trying to take circumstances to keep something else bad from happening. I'm sure if Ralph was offered something like that, he'd have obviously taken it. So it means something else than just 'the morning after' simon's death. Review, thank you.


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